Composer and guitarist Yasmin Williams has announced a US winter headline tour in support of her critically acclaimed new album, Acadia, out now via Nonesuch Records. The dates begin with four shows in California in December, before picking back up on the East Coast in February with shows in Baltimore, New York City, Northampton, Philadelphia, and more. Williams also plays Pitchfork Music Festival in London in November and Brandi Carlile's Girls Just Wanna Weekend in Mexico in January. See below for details and tickets; for all the latest, visit nonesuch.com/on-tour. As Uproxx praised, “Shredding has never sounded so beautiful, melodic, or even peaceful; it’s one of the reasons that Williams is one of the best performers I’ve ever had the fortune to witness live.”

Acadia, which The Bluegrass Situation calls “a masterwork,” is Williams’ most sonically expansive work to date, comprising nine original, mostly instrumental, tracks written and produced by Williams, and featuring her on various guitars, banjo, calabash drum, tap shoes, and kora. Williams is joined on the album by collaborators including Immanuel Wilkins on saxophone, Dom Flemons on rhythm bones, Aoife O’Donovan on vocals, William Tyler on guitar, and many others—creating a folk music that reflects the wide range of musical influences that have inspired her throughout her life.

A native of northern Virginia, Yasmin Williams has garnered praise from the likes of Pitchfork, including her in its list of 25 New and Rising Artists Shaping the Future of Music in 2023, and NPR Music, naming her a Breakthrough Artist of 2021, saying: “Yasmin Williams treats her guitar like a playground. She taps the wood of the instrument, fingertaps the fret—on other songs, she taps dance shoes, plays the kora or a thumb piano while playing the guitar.” The outlet further noted the “joy and possibility she brings to the guitar … This music goes back to Black blues guitarists; she’s reclaiming, but she’s also staking her claim at the same time.”

“Acadia has several meanings,” says Williams. “A place of rural peace and pastoral poetry (Italian), a refuge or idyllic place, (Greek and Italian), fertile land (Mi'kmaq), a place of plenty (French) ... all of this relates to the ethos of this album. The songs are seeds I planted, and the seeds grew into the album, Acadia: a place of peace, a place where creativity can blossom, a place where everyone can fit in together and collaborate effectively, a place where the fruits of my own labor in music can fully flourish without judgment or prejudice. One of my visions for this record was to expand the potential for current folk music to encourage collaboration across various genres. Blurring those somewhat arbitrary lines has been a natural tendency for me since I started writing music at twelve years old and Acadia is a full circle moment.”

YASMIN WILLIAMS ON TOUR